One Step Forward
by wsm021
Summary: "Stefan thinks I have feelings for you". When she says it, he knows she didn't mean to. The same way he asked, not ready for the answer. "Do you?" One-shot off the 3x19 promo


**AN: Impossible not to write this, after weeks of disappointment there is finally hope. **

The look on his face makes her want to vomit. Elena had always known he cared for Rose, but the way he reaches for her when he want even see her… it's too much. She looked away letting Jeremy do what needed to be done. The entire way back to the hotel she can't get that look out of her mind, the potential behind it. She'd never spent any real time thinking about Damon's love for her. It was a topic she usually avoided at all costs and now it's all she can think of. Because that look in his eye, just knowing that Rose was in the room with him invoked more emotion from him than she had seen since the ball. It hurt so much, the knowledge that he could love someone that wasn't her. That if Rose hadn't died… she can't even finish the thought. She should be happy, Stefan was finding himself again and Damon was treating her the way he treated everyone and all the lines were clearly drawn in the sand and yet she'd never felt so lost. So alone.

"Stefan thinks I have feelings for you." He can tell by the look on her face she hadn't meant to say that. He was beginning to feel normal again. He was Damon Salvatore and she was Elena Gilbert and they were friends. The longer they sat in the car not fighting, the longer they talked and joked without pushing boundaries, the more he felt like he could live with things the way they were. And being near Rose had helped with that. He would never tell a soul but he had truly cared for Rose, cared for Andie. As much as he had never loved them like Elena, would never love anyone the way he loved Elena, he could move on. Have someone else, and be relatively happy. At least he'd believed that before she had dumped this on him.

"Do you?" Of course he would ask. How could he not? He'd been telling her for over a year that there was something between them. Something she just admitted his own brother was well aware of. Of course he would want to know whether it was true. And it had to be didn't it. If everyone called it a dog, it barked like a dog and looked like a dog, how could it be anything else. But it had to be something else. Because she knew what it felt like to love someone, and she didn't feel that way towards him. The safety and familiarity that accompanied her memories of Matt and Stefan just weren't there with him. Sure he was safe, and more than familiar but the emotions he brought out within her were far from it.

"I don't know what I feel" She didn't even need to think about it. He wonders how many times she'd said the words, how many people had heard them before him. He schools his face, he would give nothing away. All the conclusions he had drawn about them, this one hurt the most. Elena thought about everything to an extent that he wasn't sure was even healthy. She knew where she stood on all points. If she didn't know where she stood with him it was because she didn't want to. If she didn't know how to qualify her feelings for him it was because she didn't want them. He couldn't do anything about that. No amounts of good behaviour or long conversation were going to change that fact. "Do you love Stefan?"

"Yes." He asks like it's nothing, and she answers much in the same way. How could she not? She would always love Stefan, and as much as that knowledge may hurt him, he had asked and she had answered. Except it didn't feel the way it used to. Admitting to her love for Stefan had never made her hurt for the man in front of her. She had never wanted to cause Damon pain but she wouldn't apologize for the way she felt about his brother. Right now all she wants to do is apologize. She wants to drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness for ever entering into a relationship with the younger Salvatore. She wants more than anything to erase all of her moments with the other brother that had come at the expense of the man in front of her. That had to count for something at least.

He wants to walk away. He wants to give her the car keys and let her make the journey back to mystic falls on her own. He wants to find a witch and make Rose corporal again and bury himself in her arms. To feel the love everyone seemed to think him undeserving of. Someone had chosen him, why hadn't he gotten to keep that. Yet still even his thoughts felt like betrayal, silly as it may seem. But his mind was a liar, he couldn't betray Elena. She was never his to love faithfully, she was never his to love at all. "Well that settles it doesn't it."

She could cry for all the misery she feels. It settles nothing. What could that possibly settle between them? She still had no idea what to call them, friends sounded so juvenile and to say they were nothing more than that sounded like a lie. She looks at him for the first time since beginning this battle of wills and would love nothing more than to crawl into a cave and die. The look of utter resignation kills something inside of her that feels disturbingly like her soul and it definitely breaks what's left of her heart. For the first time ever she wishes Stefan had just let her die in that crash. Not to save her from Klaus or losing Jenna but to save Damon from the obvious pain she inflicted upon him.

He sidesteps her when she tries to reach for him. They had gotten exceedingly good at not touching each other lately. There had been a time, not too long ago where they touched purely out of instinct. The constant, consuming need to be close, to be reassured of the other's presence. That was before, back when they could have been something more. Now, he was her friend and she was his brother's and there would be no touching. He completely ignores the look of devastation in her eyes when he moves around her into the bathroom. He needed to wash away the last few months before he could stand to be in the same room again.

She sits in the bed and wills herself not to cry. Elena can't remember the last time he'd touched her, really touched her. She racks her brain and comes only to the conclusion that it's been too long. She used to be able to measure their relationship in touches. The grazing of fingertips and the joining on hands. A physical sensation telling her that they were okay, that they had survived another day, together. All she had now were gazes that were never met and the feeling on his eyes on her whenever he knew her back was turned. Gone was the light-hearted banter and five minute breaks from reality. He would exit the shower and lay on the bed and she would wait for the feeling of his hand in hers but it would never come, because while they had both survived another day, it had not been together. Her body crumpled under the weight of that particular truth and the tears fell without her permission.

The air tastes of salt and it's all he can do not to draw her into his arms. It wasn't his place anymore, that had never been his place. He'd held it for a time, keeping it warm until Stefan could step back in. He's almost okay with that. It's the almost that's keeping him here, watching her from the sidelines. It's the almost that makes him leave. He's hungry and while usually he would never admit that to her, he had no reason not to anymore. There are blood bags in the car but he needs to hunt, even if just to prove to himself he still could. Her breath hitches and her heart stops for more beats than he cares to count. He can only imagine the ways in which he's currently disappointing her but that wasn't _her_ place. She was in no position to ask anymore of him than what he was willing to give. There was no time like the present for her to realize that.

Rose was one thing. Rose was dead. Whatever woman he found in whatever bar he ended up in, she was different. She was very much alive and she had eyes to see and hands to touch and a mou- He could have stayed. She hasn't been drinking vervain, she would have let him. But she didn't, didn't even offer. Just let him walk out the door with the knowledge that he could find someone else, that he would find someone else. And why shouldn't he, when she couldn't even voice her desires. And then she's clutching the toilet bowl for dear life and emptying the pitiful contents of her stomach because she understands now. **_"Well that settles it doesn't it". _**He wouldn't wait. She couldn't even say whether or not she had feelings for him but without hesitation could admit to loving his brother. Without even meaning to she had given him an answer she wasn't sure was true and it leaves her empty in a way she had ever thought possible.

When he finally returns in he's clearly drunk. Stumbling in smelling of cheap perfume and sex with an air of self-satisfaction. He had more than proved that he was not a ruined man. His mission had been to show himself that Elena Gilbert had not taken anything from him that he could not take back. He'd succeeded in a way, staying out longer than necessary. The shower he takes before climbing into bed, well he'd failed in a way too. Lying awake at an hour made for sleep he recites the anthem in every language he knows because she's still awake and he doesn't want to think of her having wanted all night for him to come back.

She smiled sadly when the door closes behind him. A smile that grows while he's in the shower. Whatever point he had made by leaving was mute the second he hadn't thrown it in her face. Whatever decisions he had come to were dashed the instant he reached for her, only to remember himself again. She waits until she's sure he plans on staying in the bed before moving closer. When together, they slept with her head on his chest and his hand in hers. That was not something she would give up. Not for anything. He flinches and it hurts but he doesn't move away. Sleep begins to take her as she feels him relax beneath her. "Nothing is settled." It's a breathy whisper but the way his fingers press against her palm it's a whisper, a promise she knows he heard.


End file.
